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Prop How-To'sPost your own tutorials here or links to your favorite project tutorials. Please only post direct links to how-to pages, not links to main pages of a web site. Please use the Links forum for that.

I built a bottomless pit several years ago based on some of the tutorials on MonsterList. But I never liked how incredibly heavy it was or the fact that when I picked it up the bottom would fall off. It eventually decayed and needed replaced so this is my modified version.

These are the basic steps I used to make it. I am not giving detailed instructions. This is pretty easy to figure out. Mine was based on a 24 X 24 inch piece of glass which I already had.

First I cut out four walls all the same size, each one a little over 24" wide to accommodate my glass. Then I added 1x2s to the bottom of all four, and the sides of 2 of them. I left a gap at the bottom for the glass to slide into.

Then I cut styrofoam that would fit into each panel. At this point you can assemble 3 walls. Leave the fourth off for now.

__________________If you want to get someone's attention, Just Whisper. Or put a lot of dead bodies in your front yard.

I took a blowtorch and melted the styrofoam enough to get rid of that smooth cardboard look. It is hard to tell any difference in the pics other than it is now brown, but in person you can see the depth of the burns. Then I painted it all red. I will add more colors when I am done.

Then I put some Great Stuff foam in some areas of the light track and laid the lights into the track. As I pushed them down some of the foam oozed out around the edge filling in some of the gaps and helping to hold the lights in place. Then I went back and added some more Great Stuff foam in a few areas to break up the solid line of lights.

More to come next Tues. I am waiting for another set of lights.

__________________If you want to get someone's attention, Just Whisper. Or put a lot of dead bodies in your front yard.

Thanks so much for this tutorial JW. I've been wanting to do a bottomless pit eventually and this will be very helpful. The only problem I have with this thread is that I can't hit the LIKE button because I don't see one????

After you have installed all your lights go back and cover them with a thin coating of great stuff. I discovered this will give it a much nicer and more subtle effect when they are turned on.

Finish painting your foam. Let me give you a really important painting tip. As you can see from my finished effect photo, no one can see what color you paint the inside. As you can almost see, I wasted a LOT of time putting a nice paint job on mine. Just go ahead and paint the inside red or brown. Since I used orange rope lights I put a light coat of orange spray paint on the foam covering my lights so the color would be enhanced.

Next, slide the mirror piece into the bottom slot on your box. Then you can put your fourth wall on. Have fun with this step. It is not that easy. Be patient and if you can get help, do. I don't have pics of this step as I could not put the glass in, cuss, throw stuff, AND take pics all at the same time.

After your wall is screwed in place I suggest laying your box on it's side and taking an air compressor and blowing any junk out of it. Any trash inside can ruin the effect.

Add some Great stuff to the outside if you want. Then paint it when it is dry.

After you are done with that you can set your top mirror in place. It should just set right on top of the foam and corner supports as you can see in the pic above. I used a regular piece of mirror for the bottom. But for the top piece I used plexiglass with one way mirror tint installed. Given a choice, I would recommend plexiglass for both pieces for two reasons. 1) Glass or mirror is VERY heavy and 2) they are very breakable. The mirrored film works great.

__________________If you want to get someone's attention, Just Whisper. Or put a lot of dead bodies in your front yard.